Donald J. Hammerstrom

Pacific Northwest GridWise™ Testbed Demonstration Projects; Part I. Olympic Peninsula Project

This report describes the implementation and results of a field demonstration wherein residential electric water heaters and thermostats, commercial building space conditioning, municipal water pump loads, and several distributed generators were coordinated to manage constrained feeder electrical distribution through the two-way communication of load status and electric price signals. The field demonstration took place in Washington and Oregon and was paid for by the U.S. Department of Energy and several northwest utilities. Price is found to be an effective control signal for managing transmission or distribution congestion. Real-time signals at 5-minute intervals are shown to shift controlled load in time. The behaviors of customers and their responses under fixed, time-of-use, and real-time price contracts are compared. Peak loads are effectively reduced on the experimental feeder. A novel application of portfolio theory is applied to the selection of an optimal mix of customer contract types.

Pacific Northwest GridWise™ Testbed Demonstration Projects; Part II. Grid Friendly™ Appliance Project

Fifty residential electric water heaters and 150 new residential clothes dryers were modified to respond to signals received from underfrequency, load-shedding appliance controllers. Each controller monitored the power-grid voltage signal and requested that electrical load be shed by its appliance whenever electric power-grid frequency fell below 59.95 Hz. The controllers and their appliances were installed and monitored for more than a year at residential sites at three locations in Washington and Oregon. The controllers and their appliances responded reliably to each shallow underfrequency event—an average of one event per day—and shed their loads for the durations of these events. Appliance owners reported that the appliance responses were unnoticed and caused little or no inconvenience for the homes’ occupants.

AC Versus DC Distribution SystemsDid We Get it Right

We presently enjoy a predominantly AC electrical distribution system, the engineering basis for which was designed over 100 years ago. While AC distribution systems have served us well, we should periodically pause to assess what opportunities we have accepted or been denied by the overwhelming predominance of AC electrical power distribution systems. What opportunities could be obtained by engineering DC distribution into at least portions of our present system? What advantages of the present AC distribution system should be recognized and protected? This paper will focus on distribution within premise and low-voltage distribution systems. Specifically, we will address the conversion efficiency costs of adopting various premise AC and DC distribution system topologies. According to a simple predictive model formulated in this paper, premise residential DC distribution will incur unfavorable total conversion efficiency compared with existing AC premise distribution. However, if a residence is supplied by a fuel cell or another DC generator, the total conversion efficiency within a residential DC distribution system could be similar to, or even better than, that for AC distribution.

Wide-Area Energy Storage and Management system to Balance Intermittent Resources in the Bonneville Power Administration and California ISO Control Areas

The entire project addresses the issue of mitigating additional intermittency and fast ramps that occur at higher penetration of intermittent resources, including wind genera-tion, in the Bonneville Power Administration (BPA) and the California Independent Sys-tem Operator (California ISO) control areas. The proposed Wide Area Energy Storage and Management System (WAEMS) will address the additional regulation requirement through the energy exchange between the participating control areas and through the use of energy storage and other generation resources. For the BPA and California ISO control centers, the new regulation service will look no different comparing with the traditional regulation resources. The proposed project will benefit the regulation service in these service areas, regardless of the actual degree of penetration of the intermittent resources in the regions. The project develops principles, algorithms, market integration rules, functional de-sign and technical specifications for the WAEMS system. The project is sponsored by BPA and supported in kind by California ISO, Beacon Power Corporation, and the Cali-fornia Energy Commission (CEC).

Laminated plastic microfluidic components for biological and chemical systems

Laminated plastic microfluidic components are being developed for biological testing systems and chemical sensors. Applications include a DNA thermal cycler, DNA analytical systems, electrophoretic flow systems, dialysis systems, and metal sensors for ground water. This article describes fabrication processes developed for these plastic microfluidic components, and the fabrication of a chromium metal sensor and a microdialysis device. Most of the components have a stacked architecture. Using this architecture, the fluid flows, or is pumped through, as many as nine laminated functional levels. Functions include pumping, mixing, reaction, detection, reservoirs, separations, and electronics. Polyimide, poly(methylmethacrylate) (PMMA), and polycarbonate materials with thicknesses between 25 and 125 μm are used to construct the components. This makes the components low cost, inert to many biological fluids and chemicals, and disposable. The components are fabricated by excimer laser micromachining the microcha...

An evaluation of the water heater load potential for providing regulation service

This paper investigates the possibility of providing aggregated regulation services with small loads, such as water heaters or air conditioners. A direct-load control algorithm is presented to aggregate the water heater load for the purpose of regulation. A dual-element electric water heater model is developed, which accounts for both thermal dynamics and users water consumption. A realistic regulation signal was used to evaluate the number of water heaters needed and the operational characteristics of a water heater when providing 2-MW regulation service. Modeling results suggest that approximately 33 000 water heaters are needed to provide a 2-MW regulation service 24 hours a day. However, if water heaters only provide regulation from 6:00 to 24:00, approximately 20 000 will be needed. Because the control algorithm has considered the thermal setting of the water heater, customer comfort is maintained. Therefore, the aggregated regulation service provided by water heater loads can become a major source of revenue for load-serving entities when the smart grid enables the direct load control.

The pacific northwest demand response market demonstration

This paper describes the implementation and results of a field demonstration wherein residential electric water heaters and thermostats, commercial building space conditioning, municipal water pump loads, and several distributed generators were coordinated to manage constrained feeder electrical distribution through the two-way communication of load status and electric price signals. The field demonstration took place in Washington and Oregon and was paid for by the U.S. Department of Energy and several northwest utilities. Price is found to be an effective control signal for managing transmission or distribution congestion. Real-time signals at 5-minute intervals are shown to shift controlled load in time. The behaviors of customers and their responses under fixed, time-of-use, and real-time price contracts are compared. Peak loads are effectively reduced on the experimental feeder. A novel application of portfolio theory is applied to the selection of an optimal mix of customer contract types.

Transactive Controls: A Market-Based GridWiseTM Controls for Building Systems

This paper discusses the advantages of a market-based controls program developed for the GridWise program.

Laser micromachined and laminated microchannel components for chemical sensors and heat transfer applications

The fabrication of microchannel chemical sensors with seven laminated individual functional modules is described. The sensors, used to detect chromium in nuclear and chemical waste streams, were fabricated using laser micromachining, bulk silicon micromachining, photolithographic techniques, sputter coating deposition, and anodic and adhesive bonding processes. The size of the sensor was 2 cm by 2.2 cm, with a total thickness of 2.2 cm. It consisted of two or more reservoir modules to hold the liquids being evaluate, two or more micropump modules to pump the liquids through the sensor, a chemical mixing module, a reaction module, and a sensor module with electrical circuitry for connection to external measurement equipment. The fluids were directed through the layers by interconnecting flow channels. The reservoir modules were fabricated by machining Pyrex and anodic bonding to silicon. The chemical mixing module was fabricated by wet etching Pyrex and anodic bonding to silicon. The reaction module contained a serpentine 200- micrometers -wide channel, and was formed by laser micromachining polyimide. The first prototype of this sensor employed external micropumps, while the second prototype will use off-the-shelf piezoelectric micropumps. The detector layer consisted of iridium, silver, and platinum sensor pads connected to gold contact strips. The modules were joined using adhesive bonding, and an electrostatic technique was used for silicon-Pyrex bonding.

Valuation of Transactive Systems

This is a final report from a project funded by the U.S. Department of Energy to formulate and test a methodology for valuation of systems where transaction-based mechanisms coordinate the exchange of value between the system’s actors. Today, the principal commodity being exchanged is electrical energy, and such mechanisms are called transactive energy systems. The authors strove to lay a foundation for meaningful valuations of transactive systems in general, and transactive energy systems as a special case. The word valuation is used in many different ways. This report proposes a valuation methodology that is inclusive of many types of valuations. Many will be familiar with cost-benefit valuations, in which both costs and benefits are assessed to determine whether the assets are worth their cost. Another set of valuation methods attempt to optimize an outcome using available resources, as is the case with integrated resource planning. In the end, this report’s methodology was most influenced by and most resembles the integrated-resource-planning approach. Regardless, we wish to enforce the premise that all valuations are comparative and should clearly specify a baseline scenario. A long, annotated list of prior valuation studies and valuation methodologies that influenced this report has been appended to thismorexa0» report. Much research is being conducted today concerning transactive systems, but only a handful of transactive system mechanisms have been formulated and field tested. They are found to be quite diverse, and the documentation of the various mechanisms is uneven in breadth and quality. It is therefore not adequate to simply assert that a valuation scenario includes a transactive system; certain characteristics and qualities of the chosen transactive system mechanism must be defined and stated. The report lists and discusses most of the known transactive system mechanisms. It offers a set of questions that may be used to help specify important characteristics of the transactive system mechanisms, which should be conveyed along with other valuation results. A valuation methodology is proposed. Some abstraction is necessarily retained so that the methodology may be applied for the many purposes of today’s valuations and across grid, building, societal, and other domains. The report’s methodology advocates separation of operational timescales from long-term growth timescales. Operational models are defined as the models that inform impacts within the relatively short, often yearlong, operational time periods. Growth models define how the scenarios evolve from one operational period to the next (e.g., from year to year). We believe the recommended methodology is a critical step toward collaborative community platforms, where analysts and decision makers alike could contribute and borrow content within their expertise. The report then asks, what is unique about valuations when systems become coordinated by transactive systems? In answer, accurate valuations of transactive systems require careful adherence to the dynamic interaction between a system’s responsive elements and the system’s operational objectives. In every transactive system mechanism, elements respond to incentives that become revealed to them, and certain operational objectives become explicitly incentivized by the transactive system mechanism. The transactive system mechanisms define the important coupling between the responsive elements and the system’s objectives.«xa0less